9 Reasons To Start Homesteading

I wasn’t looking for reasons to start homesteading when we gave up our ideal residence on a quaint little cul-de-sac, four years ago, and set off for the country. In fact, I really only wanted to be able to walk outside in my pajamas and not have to worry about being seen by the neighbors.

I had big goals.

When I got pregnant shortly after moving in, my only desire for cultivating the land was to clear some space for a pool and a deck.

You have a mid-summer baby? You understand.

Homesteading wasn’t even on my radar.

Then 2020 happened.

And homesteading was on everyone’s radar.

What is a homesteader anyways?

I won’t bore you with the webster definition of what a homesteader is, you can just google that. I will, instead, tell you what I’ve come to discover a homesteader truly is:

A modern day homesteader is someone who opts out of easy, quick, and cost-free and instead decides to live life with intention and purpose, following the rhythms of nature.

We live in a microwave culture. But we do best in an environment that’s more like baking fresh sourdough bread in an oven which is only heated by stoking a fire.

I don’t have an oven like that. But I know someone who is seriously considering investing in one, so I’m basically Amish.

Basically.

My point is, to homestead is to slow down and make space for life to unfold instead of always hustling to make things happen at the speed of light. It’s taking responsibility for the food you eat, the land you have, and the time you’ve been given.

Almost all of my reasons to start homesteading revolve around the central theme of less going with the flow of our current culture and more living within the rhythms of nature.

Can you make a living by starting a homestead?

The short answer is, yes.

The slightly longer answer is, yes but it requires serious planning, sacrificing, and hard work.

Always hard work.

Our family homestead’s central theme is goats. Our first big investment was in a “milking quad” of four bottle babies. We purchased two females, and two males, who all come from solid milking lines and will grow to breed and create our own line of milkers.

We’re still waiting for those babies to grow, four months in. So we’ve invested in their initial purchase, in their pasture fencing, shelter, and food, and we have yet to see any ROI. It will take years of kidding, selling baby goats, learning how to make goat milk products to sell, and finding customers to purchase milk, before we could net any sort of profit.

We did not get into homesteading to net a profit.

Instead, we were determined to change up our lifestyle, start eating foods and drinking milk that we knew exactly where it came from, and provide the brunt of our family’s nutritional needs.

Plus, baby goats are cute.

So, if you’re not making money, what are the benefits of homesteading?

The biggest benefit I have thus far experienced has, far and away, been watching my children grow up on a small farm. My two and four year old, not to mention my ten year old who was an active participant, watched our first goat birth- up close and personal!

My kids know that work comes before play because we handle barn chores before we do anything else each morning.

And my toddlers are learning the biblical concept of what a Good Shepherd really is. When we have to stop and talk about why we shouldn’t catch our chickens just to see how high we can throw them and watch them flap frantically back to earth, it’s easier to point out what a good shepherd definitely is not.

It’s all good. They’re fine. The chickens love us.

The truth is, the reasons you should start homesteading begins with your kids. I’m convinced there is no better childhood available.

What should I know before I start homesteading?

We went into our homesteading journey with eyes wide closed. Both my husband and I are so far removed from ancestral homesteaders, that we’ve learned everything from scratch.

I mean, my hubby grew up in Orange County, CA, for goodness sakes!

It’s not that you have to know anything about how to homestead, per say, but you ought to know stuff about what it takes to homestead.

My top 3 things you should know about homesteading before you begin:

• You should know that you’re going to have to do a lot of research. And I mean a lot. Lucky for me, my husband is a research fanatic. I’m more of the visionary dreamer. I dream up what we should do, my husband looks up how we might be able to do that thing. It’s a match made in heaven.

• To start homesteading, you should first plan your infrastructure. If you’re going to be including live animals, as most homesteaders do, then you’re going to want to have the proper fencing, shelters, and pasture space for them. Take it from someone who spent three 12 hour days in a row preparing for a horse that they had no business buying. #liveandlearn

• The last thing you should know about homesteading is that you can get lost in all of the “coulds” and lose focus of the “shoulds.” Like everything else, keeping up with the homesteading Joneses is a real temptation. We’ve found that building slower, more intentionally, is always better than jumping into things and trying to build a parachute on the way down. See the aforementioned horse catastrophe for details.

Reasons To Start Homesteading Today:

1. My number one reason to start homesteading would be because there is no better way to connect with our Creator and His nature. The natural rhythms of work and rest force you to recognize that you are inherently incapable of accomplishing anything on your own. And in a world of chaos and crazy, lately, it’s nice to notice and remember that there is so much beauty around us!

2. Homesteading encourages you to slow down. There is no quick way to make real sourdough bread. You can’t rush a goat’s pregnancy. Carrots grow in the length of time it takes carrots to grow. It’s a daily reminder to do the next thing next and not worry about tomorrow.

3. Another great reason to homestead is that it creates strong work ethic in your children. Admittedly, there are many ways to impart this character trait in your kiddos, but none quite so effective as mucking stalls and hauling water buckets. The fact is, if your kids don’t do these chores, living, breathing things suffer. They learn this quickly!

4. Growing up on a homestead provides space for kids to learn, grow, and explore through interacting with nature. There is no science class in the world that can compete with watching baby goats being born. And it’s a rare day when one, or all three, of them isn’t sent outside to play. Even when they resist it, they end up loving it!

More Reasons to Start Homesteading:

5. Homesteading teaches you the value of life and the work that goes into the food you eat. This year, we’re raising three pigs to have processed. Along with our friends, we’ll be processing our own meat chickens this year, too. It feels good, and worthy, to give animals a lovely life while they’re alive. It feels even better to know exactly what you’re eating!

6. This lifestyle teaches you how to be self-sustainable. As long as I have flour, water, some chickens to lay eggs, and goats to milk, our family is going to be okay for awhile. And if things get really bad really quickly, we always have a 150lb Great Dane for a back up meal. #butamijoking?

7. I’m learning that busy hands makes for a full life. I don’t mean busy the way culture means busy. It isn’t about spending every moment chasing your dreams or “living your best life” because “yolo”. It’s about exerting all of your energy to give your family the best of yourself. It’s teaching them to give of themselves, too.

8. Being busy on the homestead means you have less time for societal distractions. By default, if you’re spending your morning hours feeding hungry animals and milking goats, you can’t be watching the news. If you’re refilling water buckets during the baby’s nap, you can’t be scrolling facebook. Sure, I find time to relax. But with less time, I make sure it’s valuable time. Less distractions means more satisfaction!

Check out this post for more reasons why you should ditch social media!

9. One of the best reasons to start homesteading is this: when you live a traditional lifestyle, it’s much easier to impart wholesome Christian values to your children. They grow up realizing that their world doesn’t actually revolve around them. They grow up seeing that serving is better. And that each day is a blessing. When life and death are a part of their every day, you don’t have to convince them that they are mortal and God, not them, is in control.

Starting a homestead is not without it’s disadvantages!

There are two disadvantages when it comes to starting a homestead, that I can think of. One, it’s nearly impossible to plan a vacation. Even if you could find someone crazy enough to come care for your 27 chickens, 9 goats, 3 pigs, 2 llamas, cat, and dog, it would cost the price of the vacation itself!

Better to plan on building a life you don’t need a vacation from.

And two, homesteading ruins you for any other way of life.

You’ll get carried away with it. You’ll fall in love with it. You might even become that crazy chicken lady who doesn’t make a fuss about poop on her shoes or hay in her hair… and who would miss her often obnoxious, always adorable barn babies too much to go on a vacation, anyways.

At the end of the day, I wouldn’t choose any other way of life.

What would you add to the list of reasons to start homesteading?